


who is she?

by animalSaint, FreezingKaiju



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Body Horror, Detective Noir, Detective and Thief, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, it's gendo. he's a bitch, or atleast an attempt at such, strangling mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animalSaint/pseuds/animalSaint, https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingKaiju/pseuds/FreezingKaiju
Summary: It's 192X. The Roaring Twenties. Electric inventions are sweeping the nation. As are bootlegging, rich partying assholes, and the national pasttime, murder. Detective Asuka Langley Soryu, somewhat down on her luck and MOST DEFINITELY NOT LOSING IT, accepts a job investigating the death of a prominent professor. What she finds on the case is a lot of eyeballs, a room full of unanswered questions, and the woman of her dreams.(shifting perspective)
Relationships: Ayanami Rei/Souryuu Asuka Langley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	1. her reputation precedes

It's 10:33 on a Wednesday afternoon, and Asuka Langley Soryu, private eye, needs to buy a new watch. She sideeyes Aida's and jots down on her notepad: 4:20 PM. An odd time.

This is, if Suzuhara's to be believed (and he usually is), the freshest scene she's ever been on. Cops haven't even got to this yet. Apparently, her agency's in one of the house's reference books. Asuka thanked her lucky stars she never got around to moving it outta her mom's old office.

It was a butler who discovered the body, so she heard. Nobody else got near, but Dr. Akagi, the family physician, is actively breathing down her neck. She'll add her to the suspect list sometime she isn't looking.

Now, she's in front of the door, with her 'team'; the folks she'll tolerate, at least.

"So." Asuka clicks her tongue. "This it?"

"Yep. Buncha blunt and sharp trauma to the base of the neck. Plus, barely even started, and--" He crouches down, lifting the corpse's coat (as a coroner does, with gloved hands) before furrowing his brow and wrinkling his nose. "All I gotta say is 'e stinks like hell, but... not the dead, rotting corpse kind of 'stinks like hell'. It's kinda... different, 'nd not in a good way. I dunno, can't place it."

He grimaces, fiddling with the corpse's sleeve to check the flesh underneath. "Again, if y'ask me, I'd say there was foul play involved. All those blows to the back of his neck? That shit don't just happen. But I mean I'm sure if we look around more we can find the-- GAH!"

Suzuhara lets go and scrambles back with the loudest yelp known to mankind.

" _Scheiße_! What is it?!" Asuka jumps back, then pushes forward and leans down to get a proper look...and her eyes go to hell.

Under the sleeve is a web of withered tissue, bony protrusions and twisted muscles beneath the surgeon's pallid grey skin. On the side of his forearm, placed where nothing should really be unless some drunken artist painted it there, is a single, unblinking eye. Wide open, staring blind into the distance, complete somehow with a goddamn tear duct.

"What new spore of madness is this?!" Asuka yells. Cheesy line? Yes. Not the time to think about her image though. Time to get stared at by a complete nightmare.

She knows these halls. She walks through them like this is only one of her dreams-- the ones she considers to be kinder, where if she doesn't make it in time the floor will only tear apart beneath her, and she will merely fall and fall and fall into a cold, humming medical light until she awakes, sweating and feverish, electing to not sleep any more that night.

Here she knows her destination, she knows what she will see already-- the image of that eye bulging from the palm of that vile man is seared in the back of her mind, branded into her memory by dreams, along with the phantom pain of a scalpel along her stomach and fingers on her throat that have never been there. Perhaps that is a premonition of its own. Or a memory from a life never lived? She still isn't sure.

She opens the door like it isn't even material-- it's soundless, lacking the clacking of a knob or the squeak of a hinge. Perhaps that is the oddest and saddest skill she has, the skill to remain unnoticed. Which, she notes absently, is less of a skill and more of a personal trait, a fact of herself that she has by some miracle found the advantages to.

So here she stands now, in front of the door of a room in a place that makes her feel comfortably numb, staring down at a dead man across the floor with mixed feelings of sickness, hatred, ecstasy, and pure, mortifying dread. Within seconds she makes eye contact with...

"Adam." It's barely above a whisper, more of a breath really, but it's enough to act as a catalyst for another wave of nausea and light-headedness and... _disgust_.

Asuka freezes, caught between the horror before her and a fear so familiar, so often recalled, she can almost call it comforting.

She heard nothing, none of them did, and of course they didn’t. They never do.

Oh, she knows that voice. She hates that voice. A voice that makes her heart pound, her face burn, her hair stand on end. One she’s only heard once before, truly.

Once was enough.

Yet she stays frozen to her spot. The others...there’s rumors, Asuka knows them. Rumors that she’s losing her grip. That the Lady in White is all her imagination, or maybe her altogether. And she knows she’s the only one who’s seen her, but...she can’t let herself turn around and see nothing there, she can’t take the fucking chance that she, Asuka Langley Soryu, Private Eye, could ever be wrong!

“Adam? Nah, I think his name was Gendo,” Aida remarks.

_Ah. Someone heard that._ Rei narrows her eyes, tearing her gaze away from the abomination before her. She takes a slow, deep breath to find composure, to calm the storm within her chest and behind her forehead.

"That... is correct. His name was Gendo. Adam is the disease he put within himself." Rei's eyes are fixed on the carpet, pointedly avoiding the eye of Adam as much as she is able. "This is no ordinary case, Detective. There is more at stake here than you will ever know."

She waits, expecting Soryu to take that as a challenge, deeply wanting her to. Her dreams have shown her no alternative, no one else who will follow her through the dark and into the abyss that awaits them. _Please help me._

In some sense, Asuka doesn’t want to turn around. Doesn’t want to dispel the magic, and see her mysterious and glorious rival in normal, dull, ordinary, human form.

But...despite everything, the gravity of the situation, the sheer strangeness of this body... _She challenged me_.

And Asuka Langley Soryu never backs down from a challenge.

She springs to her feet, turns, and casts a smug look at the ‘stranger’, hand on the brim of her hat for the sake of dramatics. “I can handle it! No matter what!”

Rei feels the tight knot in her stomach loosen slightly, but not release. Though Soryu accepted, she does not truly know what horrors await her. Truth be told, Rei doesn't know what fate holds for Soryu either.

Rei merely watches as Soryu stands to her feet and turns to face her. Rei's eyes, in their weakness, are drawn to the face of the woman before her-- a woman she has seen as a blur in her visions and a crude black-and-white photo in newsprints, but never truly seen in all her glory. With fiery hair flowing behind her, cheeks dappled with freckles, and blue eyes that are nothing less than stunning, eyes that burn with an intensity that does not lie-- Rei can conclude very easily that Soryu is far more breathtaking to behold in person. She is quite tall, something Rei had already vaguely ascertained from previous encounters, and carries herself with an air of self-importance that Rei is certain many would not appreciate-- though Rei knows more than anything that Soryu is important, more than just a simple pawn in what could almost be considered a divine game of chess.

"I believe that you can," Rei says softly, "but this does not end with the solving of... his death alone. You cannot end it there. Know this fully."

The first thing Asuka sees, and the immediate confirmation, are those eyes. _The eyes!_ Those glittering rubies, that baleful gaze, those eyes she’s looked into across alleys, rooftops, a masquerade ball, an empty field, the deepest oceans of her dreams. Set into a face she’s never seen before, not up close, a face dotted with odd spaces of concealer that don’t quite match her skin tone, a face that has seen much for her apparent youth. She looks roughly the same age as Asuka herself, though quite a bit shorter. There’s a downright gorgeous amount of softness all over her; her mental image of the Lady in White had been as much sharp angles as Asuka herself, but the real her looks downright comfortable, the kinda dame you could cuddle up to real close and just listen to her talk. The shock of grey hair Asuka had rarely glimpsed is now revealed, a periwinkle blue, a bit messy like Asuka’s own, eerily reminiscent of something Asuka can’t put her finger on. The whole ‘lady in white’ title doesn’t quite apply at the moment; her dress is a dull grey, with hints of yellow and blue. It doesn’t really look right on her. The way she stands, though, how those ruby eyes looked into hers, gives Asuka the shivers. She looks like she knows the sky’s about to fall.

Her mouth dries the moment she opens it, and she closes it again. Pulls a flask off her hip, takes a drink, sticks it back on. It’s root beer, but nobody has to know that; throws folks off their game if they expect her to be tipsy.

“Bold of you to say that, Miss...?” She can’t just call her ‘lady in white’, and ‘doll’ would feel...maybe too appropriate.

"Ayanami. Rei Ayanami." Somehow it feels odd to say, since she has never had a need to introduce herself, but the revelation of her name to Soryu feels... right, like some relief of tension, a statement that Rei exists outside of whatever Soryu may believe she is. "I already know your name."

It's true, she does know Soryu's name-- but she does not know much else, besides what the woman is willing to show to the world. Rei may know her face, but not her heart, unless it is opened to her. She supposes in a way she is the same, but that does not matter.

For just a moment Rei's eyes flick to the body beside Soryu, and ice grows in her stomach. She supposes this must be the same feeling that Frankenstein's lifeless body inflicted on his monster, the sight ripping the drive of vengeance from her chest and leaving a dull, numb stone of hatred and purposelessness in its place. A new feeling she will have to be accustomed to.

Asuka holds out her hand to the Lady-- to Rei Ayanami. There was a time when she would've tackled her to the ground and found some rope, a time where she wanted nothing more than to put the Lady in White behind bars. Now...well, she's no kid anymore. There's a bullet in her shoulderblade bought on the payroll of the city police department, and, loathe as she is to admit it, she owes some key pieces of her success to Rei.

"My reputation precedes me, then?" It's...good to know she's known, too, in a sense. Rei at this point, though, is an enigma with face and name.

Toji and Kensuke, meanwhile, are busy undressing the corpse and photographing what they find. At one point, there's the sound of something ripping, and Kensuke whimpers.

"He...sewed his shirt on...wh... _oh_."

"No, that's uh. Them's sutures, bud."

Rei dips her head and reaches to take Soryu's hand-- some semblance of a warm greeting will do. Soryu's hand is warm and powerful-- her grip is firm but somewhat gentle, unlike Rei's, which is as limp as a dead fish. Rei adjusts quickly, though, squeezing Soryu's hand slightly, thumb rubbing slightly against her skin... _Hm_. It must be her general lack of physical contact that makes this gesture so strangely annihilating. That doesn't explain the strange feeling in her stomach, or the warmth of her chest, or--

Rei closes her eyes and inhales sharply at the sound of cloth tearing. A terrible sound, abhorrent, that somehow spills the sickliness of Ikari's bloating flesh and Adam's own being into the air. She shudders weakly at it, heart daring to beat faster. A mantra races through her mind, a memorized line-- _What will you do, God, when I die? I am your jar (if cracked, I lie?) Your well-spring (if the well go dry?) I am your craft, your vesture I--_

She exhales slowly as her body calms itself at the familiar thoughts, her eyes still closed. A nauseating sweetness that isn't really there still pounds against her skull. "A scion. Adam was once a being of its own." She can only pray to nothing that her voice is not shaking.

"well...now it's part of a corpse," Toji remarks.

There's the sound of a few camera flashes, then Kensuke adds, "A corpse who didn't brush his...stomach...teeth, okay I wanted to make a joke but really I'm just trying not to hurl on my camera."

Soryu doesn't even want to look at this point. _Damnit, we had a moment here...I should be professional but we had a fucking moment!_ Her face had heated up on contact, her scarred and usually-gloved hand finally making contact with a human being who didn't want to beat her up or bribe her out of a case, something in her chest had pounded for a moment _but now that's fucking gone_.

She reaches up and adjusts her hat, enough that her eyes are now gleaming pinpricks behind the brim. "Alright. We don't have a time of death or anything and I'm not gonna interrogate you, hell I hope we can work together on this, but... how'd you know the uh." She jabs her thumb back. "The professor and his little ridealong pal?"

Rei blinks, considering how to answer properly. Her relation to the deceased is too complex to state simply, and she would prefer not to explain with so many ears present, but she respects Soryu enough to not lie to her. "He was... my caregiver." The last word comes out with a hint of bitterness. To call him "father" suggests a bond of kinship between them that never existed. To merely call him a caregiver is the truth, in the loosest sense-- though, to say Gendo gave her any sort of care beyond a room and basic necessities would be very much a lie. "Adam is... was a part of a 'project' he had forced my involvement in." Do not ask if there were other projects, she pleads silently. "I was not present for most of his work, including the grafting." She had escaped far before that, adopting the surname Ayanami, avoiding the eyes of all.

That is, all except one.

Asuka Langley Soryu, a name she had seen somewhere in a stolen directory, eyes glued to those three words as the world screamed out to her of their importance. Sleepless nights spent making connections from vision to vision to reality, tracking Gendo's accomplices, tracking the name Soryu... it all hung in dark circles below her eyes. Everything paints a clear picture, spills a dread into her body that though Gendo may be dead, the Call is very much still alive.

Asuka notes the wince in her mouth, notes how her eyes contract, the brief dart to the others, the deep circles under her eyes, and nods. Piecing clues together's like assembling a weapon, and Rei just handed her the parts to a popgun. Barrel to hilt, string to cork, Gendo Ikari clearly didn't care much about his ward.

"That...gives a bit of context to a suspect list," Asuka muses aloud. "A rival colleague? A student wanting out? Someone just doing the right thing? A serial killer? Or..." She pauses, then snaps her fingers at the others. "Aida. Suzuhara. Let's rule some things out. His wallet still on him?"

"I'm not taking his pants off," Toji deadpanned.

"Ugh, fine. I'll check." Asuka groans, then crouches down and picks his pockets.

A shiver goes up her spine as her fingers pass over gnarled tissue and another grapelike, horrible lump separated only by the thin lining of the bastard's expensive pants. She yanks out as quick as possible and comes up with a wallet, a ring of keys, and a fountain pen. "...huh. Rules out robbery, as expected.”

Dr. Akagi pointedly stares at Rei.

Rei watches as Gendo's corpse gets shuffled around unceremoniously. Despite the proof in front of her, it is hard for Rei to believe that Gendo is really dead. But it must be him-- no one else would graft a Seed of Life into their own skin; they would not be able to if Gendo had access to it first. Still, watching his corpse makes her light-headed with the juxtaposition of the dark, hellish figure that had always pervaded her life and... this human body, only physically twisted by Adam. Had she not known him, she would have assumed he was an average man who had done no extraordinary evil. Something in that seems fitting, that he is more human in death with a god in his hand than he ever was in life.

Rei's eyes flick to a blood stain on the floor for a moment, trying to strengthen her grip on reality by focusing on something unmoving, when she catches the gaze of one Doctor Ritsuko Akagi. Gendo's accomplice, her physician. Rei narrows her eyes and lifts her chin just barely, a very watered-down version of the disdain Dr. Akagi always treated her with. _I know what you have done to assist in this_. It would be very strange for a man to graft something to his arm single-handedly.

 _But had I not assisted as well?_ The thought sits in her stomach once more, recognizing a modicum of fear in the doctor's eyes, and for once Rei wonders if Dr. Akagi was as much a pawn of Gendo's as she was.

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi looks back to the corpse and allows herself a sigh of relief. She doesn’t feel relieved, not really, not in the least, but it didn’t hurt to fool herself into thinking she could be. The monster’s dead, thank fuck, but his pawn’s still here. _Drinks’re on me tonight, but I’m keeping my eye on that_ thing _._

Asuka glances back to see the two’s brief, wordless exchange. She wonders how exactly they know each other. Dirt to dig later. “Is anyone else in the house? Anyone he regularly saw, anyone who’d have reason to hate him?” She pauses, and adds, “I can guess at a long list, make it just the key folks.”

Rei hesitates for a moment. "Besides domestic service, I am unaware of anyone else who would be here." She does not mention how she would not know these people anyway, with her being mostly unaware of anything in this manor beyond the chill of her own room and the library, and the minimal contact with other people under the guise of "sickliness", as Gendo had called it. "He had many contacts, but he kept most of his connections secret. I do know of the... organization NERV. As far as I am aware he remained in constant contact with it." She looks back to Dr. Akagi again, silently daring her to defend Gendo's operations. She is not sure if Akagi committed the murder or had assisted in it, but it does not matter. The culprit is irrelevant; in the grand scheme, finding the organization answering the Call and ceasing their efforts is more important, for humanity's sake. Investigating NERV is the first step toward that goal.

Those are words Rei wishes she could say, but she cannot right now-- not here with Dr. Akagi, not here with people she cannot trust with her objective-- or who may even deem her unstable or a conspiracist. No, those are words saved for a day with more secrecy, with someone she can trust. Whether that day and that someone will ever truly come to her, Rei does not know.

_NERV_. The name feels like a hand on Asuka’s shoulder, an eye pointed at her back, a whisper in her ear, a rope around her—

Asuka yanks her hands away from her shirt collar and jams them in her pockets. She’s long past that. Those documents are in an old, old box, buried deep in the agency’s archives. _Fuck that shit_.

“That’s...a place to start, then. I’ll see if I can contact them, and...” she pauses, trails off as it clicks. _She isn’t telling me everything_.

Asuka grins at Dr. Akagi, then throws the same plastered smile at her two compatriots. “Scuse me everyone, I need a bit to talk to Ms. Ayanami here. We’ll be back.” She bolts over to the door and throws it open, unknowing the rest of the house. She shoots a look back at Rei. “I’m guessing you know your way around, so lead the way."


	2. in the library with the candlestick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a discussion is had, on dreams, on books, on life, on Rei’s existence, and on living situations.

“I’m guessing you know your way around, so lead the way."

Rei nods. She slips behind Soryu quickly and without a word approaches the only room she has cared to enter: the manor's library, an expanse of knowledge and Rei's only comfort. A wide selection, varying from physics and theory to history and geography to fiction and prose. Rei has read all of them with varying degrees of understanding, but as a side effect she managed to teach herself how to read German, English, and a bit of Latin. One may call that the mark of the well-educated, but it mostly spoke of her ennui in isolation.

Rei pushes open the heavy door-- she has never asked, but it is likely to be mahogany-- and closes it gently behind Soryu. She walks ahead and sits herself down in a well-cushioned seat beside some back shelves next to a blinded window. She looks back up at Soryu expectantly.

Asuka raises an eyebrow and follows. Mahogany door, absurdly ostentatious library... Asuka could get lost in these books, but with the window it feels a bit more like a prison than anything.

She sits beside Rei, and is struck immediately by how small the seat is. How close they are to each other, immediately. It's clearly meant for one larger person to spread out on, and now having made this mistake, Asuka is hip to hip with Rei.

With the lady in white. With the woman she's been chasing for her detective career. With the living hoax, the thing everyone laughs about, with the figure she sees in her nightmares...but she's seen that hair once, too, in a dream that keeps happening, a dream that lasts only moments at a time. That hair, beside the roses; that hair, across a hallway; that hair, through the garden window of a house Asuka's never seen.

"Nice to know you're real," Asuka blurts out, unbidden, and decides in that moment to commit: a lean-in, a tilt up of the hat, a smug  _ i-caught-you _ grin.

Rei hesitates to answer for a moment, watching her fists in her lap as they open and close, over and over like clockwork. Her brow furrows for a fraction of a second before she glances back at Soryu. "Is that a compliment, Detective?"

It was meant as a genuine question; Rei can't tell if Soryu is interested in Rei's existence or simply relieved that she is not losing her grasp on reality. It is intriguing how Rei seems to have that effect on people, like they have just seen some manner of apparition. It must be the eyes. Damned things-- even if she had a chance at anything even remotely close to a "normal" life, her eyes, the color of blood, would ruin it.

Asuka blinks. She didn’t quite expect that. Then again, she never knows what to expect from the Lady in White, so why would her real self be any different? Still, Asuka needs to answer. “Course it is! I mean,“ she turns her gaze away, holds her hand up as if inspecting something nonexistent, “It’s good to know I’m still on my rocker, but...” Asuka looks back at Rei, and her eyes are drawn to scars not-quite-concealed on her hands. She recalls a time she saw the Lady at a ballroom dance, barreled across the hall to apprehend her and slipped in a pool of blood left where she was standing.  _ Was that hers? _ “...I feel like you’ve been watching me since I started this schtick. Now,  _ dame in weiß _ , I can finally know who you are.”

Rei's head tilts to the side ever so slightly.  _ Of course _ , she thinks,  _ Soryu's skills of observation are unmatched _ . "You are correct-- I have been watching you, to an extent." Her gaze turns to the world outside, past the window, to well-maintained gardens she had only ever known from a distance. She almost grimaces. Funny it is, how curated and bright they are when their owner is dead. Not even his own land would see anything worth mourning, it seems. "I have had to keep a full step ahead of you without being caught. Difficult work, but I have managed."

She shifts in her seat, leaning back slightly. "Difficult" is an understatement-- Soryu is an extremely intelligent woman, and keeping ahead of her meant careful planning and interception, doing all she can to interpret her own visions while tortured by dreams of falling, shapes, nothingness, a hand reaching out to grab her throat--

"By any means necessary I had to gain your attention. Yours alone." Rei's eyes are again drawn to Soryu, and she relents. She will blame that on some kind of natural human tendency, as one's visage tends to be attracted to the most visually dominating thing in a space, and Soryu, with her long, red hair and charming air, is without a doubt the most captivating thing in this room. It is a fair rationalization.

“You succeeded.” Asuka clicks her tongue, stares back into Rei’s eyes. They’re unnatural. Striking. Beautiful. She’s seen those eyes as dusk turns to night, how they glow like a cat’s in the moonlight, how sometimes in her darkest moments she’s closed her own, seen those eyes somehow looking back at her, and found the will to stand and fight again.

She needs to say something more than that. She has to. She should try to make some emotional fucking connection, tell her how she really feels, what the thing between them truly is.

_ I hate you.  _ The words catch in Asuka’s throat and tunnel down deep, replacing themselves whole cloth with something she’s loathe to admit; “I can’t keep you out of my dreams.”

Rei's eyes widen minutely. Though she cannot say she is... very surprised by this revelation per se, something about it shoots heat into her chest. It must be the wording; through stale leaves of prose she has acquainted herself with the notion that, without context, Soryu's words may be an idiom, may mean something quite different-- but no, that is unlikely. Though, the fact that it pushed to the forefront of Rei's mind is... not something she would like to confront, not now at least.

For now she considers the admission: Soryu has dreams regarding her. "You... you are present in my dreams as well." The confession is deathly quiet. Rei's hands wrap around each other, gripping harder than usual. If this means what Rei thinks it may mean, then this is no mere coincidence-- she and Soryu are inextricably connected, more than she initially believed.

Something inside Asuka Langley Soryu yearns to pull Ayanami into her arms. To promise to protect her (a promise unkeepable) from whatever horrors could plague her. Dimly, she recalls a dream where her office was adrift in some sort of ocean, creatures swimming past the windows and threatening to burst in. The door had opened, without the water flowing in, and the Lady in White had collapsed soaking wet across the threshold. The only feature on her face had been those wide, unblinking eyes.

Asuka rests her hand on Rei’s. “Maybe that means we’re meant to be.” ...wait. Wait no not that way no, “To, to work together!”

At first Rei freezes at the contact, breath hitching in her throat-- but then Rei exhales softly, and the tension that held her constantly taut simply... leaves her body. With Soryu's touch she is the most at peace than she has been in... years? Decades? Perhaps her entire existence. A gentle touch can really do wonders, and this is no exception. For the first time in her life her dreams melt away, all omens pointing to the fate of the human race become infinitesimal in importance, and a tiny smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.  _ All's right with the world _ .

"Yes," Rei says gently. "...Thank you, Detective." She is not quite certain what she is thanking Soryu for, but it simply feels right to do so.

Soft... Asuka exhales in turn, marvels at her face, at her tiny and wonderful smile, at how a ghost in the night could truly be the most tender, gentle, goddamn gorgeous—

She freezes up and shakes her head just slightly. “I...I’ve got a lot to thank you for, Ayanami. Don’t get cocky, but I owe you...several.” She grimaces for a second. The thought of being indebted to anyone drives her up the fucking wall. It vanishes quick, though, replaced by a shiningly confident grin. “So, world's best detective, at your service!"

With a warmth tingling in her cheeks, Rei watches the glint in Soryu's eyes-- Soryu's charm really does come in droves. She dips her head. "Of course; I do not doubt your abilities."

Rei, however, doubts her own abilities. She doesn't know what she has to offer Soryu in return-- perhaps only information brought in visions... Information that will sooner or later become depleted, as well as her usefulness, if on the off-chance that they succeed she would even survive. To Soryu, would Rei truly be worthy of remembrance, anyway?

No matter; if Rei is fortunate enough to survive her mission's completion, there would be nothing left for her here after all is said and done; she would be purely directionless, live as an ornament to the world's currents, and eventually die without a single soul wanting to remember her.

She used to meet the idea with resignation, the gentle despair and stoicism that has kept her alive so long, but now her chest grows heavy, pulsing gently once more with an aching want-- a want for closeness, a want for this heavy humanness, a want to be, and Rei finally concedes that perhaps even she can learn to be deserving of life.

"Glad to know you trust me!" Asuka crows, head held high, and squeezes once on Rei's hands.

Are we...working together, now? Asuka wonders, and her thoughts drift to opposite desks in her office, or possibly a shared one. An extra bunk in her rundown apartment. Someone else to fake-drink at the bar with while the others get smashed. That's... sure, yeah, maybe that's the friendship she's always wanted, always thought she deserved. Maybe something more. Unbidden,her mind springs two mental images, opposite and clashing: her hand in Ayanami's, pulling her away from some unseen threat, and...her and Ayanami on opposite sides of a bed, staring at each other, oh so close.

Face burning crimson (when the fuck did that happen?!), Asuka diverts her eyes as far as she can. What the fuck?!

Rei follows those blue eyes as they turn away from hers, noting the way that red hair frames them, the oh so human heat that is so evident in Soryu's face. The photos have never done her justice, she thinks once more.

It is then that Rei realizes she should say something. "I... do look forward to working with you." Hm. That sounds like it may be too professional, like they are simply business partners forming some kind of joint venture. Perhaps they are, but it feels... more than that. It feels like, if Rei is fortunate, they may truly find common ground with one another, form a bond, know more of each other than what appears on the surface. Though Rei is not... familiar with the ebb and flow of relationships in general, this feels different, this feels new.

There is, of course, the possibility that Soryu does not feel that same connection, at least in the same way-- Rei (unfortunately) assumes she is a magnetic character and must not have nearly as many problems with interpersonal relations-- but Rei has a tiny flicker of hope in her, the first in years, that says  _ perhaps, perhaps you have found someone. _

_ She...didn't notice? _ Asuka blinks, raises her eyebrows. A small part of her is somewhat disappointed.  _ Is this just a job to her? ...nah, that can't be true. _ Those grim portents she was spewing are...far too serious for 'just a job'.  _ Unless she's always like this? _ The dress, the red eyes, the shitty family, this library...maybe that just breeds folk that talk like Edgar Allen Poe wrote them into being. Or maybe she needs to talk to Ayanami more. Learn her hobbies, what books she likes, what she does in her free time. Accept that the Lady in White's just as human as anyone.

Asuka's fingers tap against Rei's hand like a typewriter, stimming unconsciously. She pauses...then reaches up with her other hand and cups Rei's chin. The concealer smudges under her thumb. Suspicions confirmed, Asuka's grin returns. "By the by. It's... a wonder, knowing what's under that mask now."

Rei's eyes close-- she has been quite used to cold, medical handlings of physicians since she was young, but otherwise physical contact is... something she is hardly acquainted with. This is a completely new experience altogether. It sends a shiver down her spine, hastens her pulse, creates a juxtaposition of being out-of-body, floating above the world, and being extremely present in the moment. This is judgement, an evaluation, but it is anything but cold.

Rei opens her eyes slightly, fighting the urge to lean into Soryu's touch, to indulge herself with the contact. "I apologize for any deceptions," Rei manages. "It was necessary, as otherwise I would... most likely have been caught, either by police or by Gendo's accomplices." Rei pauses, reflecting on how Soryu may be underwhelmed with Rei's true self-- a very hollow woman, masked with none of the mystery or intrigue around her that must have been a substitute for charm. It is this thought, and something else, something deeper that aches, that spurs her to speak again. "I... I hope I do not disappoint you."

Asuka moves her hand from Rei’s chin to her cheek and frowns. How can she reassure a practical fucking stranger and dear friend at once of an issue Asuka herself’s still not quite able to process sometimes?

“...relax, Ayanami. I’ve got a feeling you’ll impress.” She folds her frown, creases it, and flips it open into a cocky smile, as much of genuine excitement as it is out of desire to cheer her up.

She gazed into Rei’s eyes for another few seconds, the glowing red waters of her irises, then a realization hits like a pallet to the head. She...probably wouldn’t wanna sleep where that fucker died. “...you have a place to stay?”

Either by accident or by merely following an urge, Rei falls prey to her weakness this time-- she gently leans into Soryu's hand, electrically aware of the heat of Soryu's fingers, which spread that warmth like a contagion to Rei's face. It fills her with... some kind of yearning, though Rei is not sure what for. It almost makes Rei believe she could lead a normal life and forget about dreams, prophecies, the face of a dead god--

Soryu's voice gently breaches the growing static of Rei's mind with a question. Rei senses it to be a loaded question of sorts--  _ Do you have a place to stay? Would you like one? _ \-- but despite this the idea feels surreal. Not bad, but... strange. For all of Rei's existence-- she hesitates to call it a "life"-- home has only ever meant a cage, a place to be contained and monitored, kept secure until needed. The romanticized idea of home in the books she has read was never something she could grasp. But... the idea, the potential of sharing Soryu's home... something about it sounds wonderful. Alien, but wonderful.

She shakes her head. "I do not have a permanent residence." Soryu does not need to know any more than that.

Asuka watches the blush spread across Rei’s face like blood in a sink, drops at first then tinting the whole business red. Between that, the eyes, and the hair, it’s like looking at a painting of someone who can’t be real, made flesh in front of her, a person and not a work of art nor artifice.

“Well, if you need a place to stay...” Asuka shrugs, tilts her head, faux-casuality in full form. “My apartment’s got space for two.” Is it a lie? Lie by omission, then. It’s not that her apartment’s some roomy plaza. It’s just... she’s just... deeply and profoundly alone.

Yes, there is the follow-up offer that was easily predicted, but one that is... heartwarming all the same, as if it had sprang out of nothingness to embrace Rei's mind and soothe her soul.

"Thank you for the offer, Detective." Rei pauses, furrowing her brow in thought-- it is not unlikely that Soryu is only offering out of courtesy, nothing else. She meets that thought with the same feeling she does most personal notions of despair: resignation, albeit colder, albeit more of a vacuum in her chest. But still, hope remains, for here is an offer of kindness, something she is unaccustomed to, obligated or not. "I... I would like to stay with you, if you would have me," she says at last, quietly.

Asuka beams.  _ Yes. Yes yes fuck yes. Roommate. Yes _ . She then recalls, unbidden, that this is a fucking murder investigation, and coughs. "Hm. Uh. Do you...need a day or two to pack? Or can you handle it in time for heading over when we're done with the investigation? It's..." She sighs, uncups her hand from Rei's cheek and rests it on her shoulder. "Don't tell anyone how nice I'm being. I've got a fucking reputation! Can't risk fucking it up any more than I already have..." She takes a swig of her fake alcohol.

Rei watches Soryu smile-- a bright thing, illuminating, beautiful-- and cannot help but smile herself. "I can be done after the investigation. I will not take long." She doesn't have much in the way of personal belongings, despite living in a manor, and such conditions have marked her very spartan in the way of possessions-- most are only necessities. The only exceptions are books, a good distraction, and journals, once empty notebooks she had borrowed ( _ id est _ , stolen, since she took them without permission and has no intention of returning them) from the manor though she cannot recall where she found them; their pages are covered top to bottom with small, slightly uneven script, sometimes analysis, sometimes illustrations, sometimes hasty scrawlings of something that, if not written at once, would disappear into the air like some kind of mist, or that she was so distraught that she did not have the strength to keep her hand from shaking. She sometimes uses the journals for book notes as well, forgetting which is which, and a passage comparing a dream to a verse in the book of Job will suddenly be interrupted by a sketchy illustration of Rei's interpretation of H. G. Wells' time machine.

It occurs to Rei now, though, how odd she must be to other people. She knew absently that she was never particularly worth knowing, but it requires proximity to a "normal" person to understand how different she is from others. It is a fascinating way to see how relational humans are, and something she will jot down later. Then Asuka's hand falls on her shoulder, and Rei forgets how to breathe.

"I will not tell anyone," Rei assures Asuka. She has no one to tell.

"Glad we're understood." Asuka nods, squeezes Rei's shoulder gently, and shoots her a wink she's always considered a classic charmer. Inside, her mind's racing. Did she leave out anything personal? Probably. Most definitely. The apartment's an utter fucking mess, at least by her standards; it's nowhere near the level of filth of her old mentor's home. "We can talk the living situation over dinner, I'll cook. Could discuss the case too...which, come to think of it..." She pauses, hand still bracing Rei, and takes several sharp glances around the library. Her hands are full but she needs her notepad...reflexively, her fingers begin scribbling against Rei's hands. "You live-- lived here, you'd know this library, right? Is...is anything amiss?"


	3. theoretical dogs and hypothetical mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An examination of the library, a familiar painting, the revelation of a rivalry's implications, and a hand held in hand.

Rei thinks for a moment, turning her eyes away to take in the room once more-- the same but different. The form is almost identical, and this is unequivocally the same library she had known for so long, but little things have changed-- shelves are dotted with a few new books here and there, a couple missing, the lighting is brighter and colder, the floor--

"The floor is scuffed," Rei says at last. It's more odd than it sounds; the floor is typically meticulously kept clean, and not many people besides Rei would use it often enough to wear it down too much anyway. The sudden scratch marks are too erratically spaced to consider the legs of a chair to be the culprit. "Books are missing, but... that may not be necessarily suspicious." It is a library after all, albeit private. Her eyes return to Soryu. "I apologize. I... I have not been here in a long time."

“Hm...” Asuka nods thoughtfully, and wrenches herself away from Ayanami (immediately missing the contact, but, y’know, sacrifices must be made for the investigation). She whips out her magnifying glass and notepad and begins investigating the scuff marks. They all appear recent, and most from someone’s shoe, but...

She looks up and glances back at Rei, doubled over a particular set of them. Four long, shallow scratches in the floor. “Did Ikari own a dog?”

Rei is content to simply watch Soryu lean over the scratches rather than inspect them herself. Unfortunately for the detective, Rei is lost in thought, more concerned with piecing together bits and pieces of dreams that never made sense; orange liquid spilling around her, smelling of blood, life and death... _how exactly does Soryu fit into this grand scheme? Does she survive? Will she-- a dog?_ Hm. No more time for introspection when Soryu needs testimony.

"...He did not, within my knowledge," she says. It seems very unlikely that he would, but, if he did, Rei was completely unaware of it-- which, given her living conditions, would not be surprising in the least. "I believe if an animal was here, it is... not likely to be Ikari's."

"That's...hm." Asuka pauses for a moment, stoops down to a more comfortable position, and takes a proper sketch of the scratches. Tongue stuck out, hair still clipped back but wilder than usual, she's the picture of focus over form. Or perhaps form's only heightened, if you're gay enough.

"...I'll ask Kensuke to get some shots of this. Hm..." She looks back at Rei and gestures her over. "Anything in the manor you think we should investigate? You know the place."

Rei watches Soryu closely, studying her movements, the little twitches and narrowing of her eyes when scrutinizing her evidence. If they are going to work together, Rei will need to understand Soryu more... for the sake of her objective, of course.

Rei's eyes retreat to the floor when Soryu questions her. "...Ikari's office." It is a hidden room, and Rei had been there only once-- however, she knows that it is not only the place where Gendo dealt with his most clandestine affairs, but also where important files and information is kept. "If something important was stolen, it was likely taken from there."

It is true-- however, that would suggest someone has done excellent work of studying the discrepancies of the building's layout, or... an inside job. Both are suspicious. Rei has a sense that they will need access to it, regardless of whether anything was stolen.

Asuka nods, takes off her hat for a moment and pulls a lock pick out of the brim. Slapping it back on with a flourish, she jumps to her feet and strides over to Rei, offering a hand with a flourish alike some fancy fuck at a costume party or a stage magician asking for a volunteer. “Lead the way, o mysterious thief,” she portends, but can’t get through the whole thing without a smirk and a laugh.

Rei's hand gently slides into Soryu's-- and, as expected, the imposing warmth of her hand is... almost overwhelming. Rei barely feels real, but Soryu does. Soryu feels more than real. Rei admires that, almost to the point of envy. How must it feel to be real? To be human?

Rei simply nods, tugging Soryu's hand as a small indication to follow her. She leads Soryu back out of the library and through the hallway, past the door that leads to the crime scene. She walks without pausing to consider which direction she is leading; she may not have had much freedom here, but she knows this route, reliving it in her head a thousand times, sensing its importance in due time. Past drawn curtains and decorative vignettes, Rei finally leads Soryu into a side room. The door is already unlocked... _interesting_.

At first glance, this seems to be the office-- a well-furnished desk, a shelf full of patient records (Rei isn't sure if keeping them in personal possession is legal, but that is the least of their worries), and a painting on the wall, of a woman that Rei avoids all eye contact with. If Rei didn't know more, she would have assumed that the real entrance was either behind the painting or behind the shelf, but her eyes are already somewhere else: the edge of the carpet behind the desk, only infinitesimally suspicious.

Asuka gives the others a wave as they pass by, and follows Rei into the office. It...doesn't seem _that_ suspicious. There's a portrait her eyes are drawn to that looks...oddly familiar... and Rei doesn't seem to wanna look at it. Hm. Her mom, maybe? Asuka can understand.

She follows Rei's line of sight and... _oh!_ Asuka grins, wolfish, and snaps her fingers. She pulls Rei over, hand still clasped in hers, stoops down and kicks the rug aside.

"Trapdoor. Bingo." Asuka pauses, then glances up at Rei, studies how her expression's changed. That portrait now lurks behind her, a ghost over Rei's shoulder. They look eerily alike. "Is it safe?"

Rei can feel the gaze of Yui burning into the nape of her neck, cold-hot tingles spreading across the skin. Even in death, Yui Ikari, biological engineer and master of the neurosciences, still lives, still overshadows Rei, if not through her damned works, if not through this hellish painting, then through Rei Ayanami herself. Gendo Ikari may have been the one to bring Rei to this wretched state of being, but Yui planned for this, leaving cells from her own body to make it possible. One could even call her Rei's "mother"-- or one of them, anyway, if her soul donor counts. It doesn't matter, for she despises them both. Rei would never thank them, even if she ever came to love herself.

Rei focuses back in on the world around her, ignoring the fact that she was just shaking, just clenching her hand around Soryu's to the point where it must have hurt. She takes a deep breath and swallows back the bilious anger surging in her throat. _Not now_.

"It should be safe. Unless." She narrows her eyes, scrutinizing the entrance as if staring hard enough will allow her to simply see right through it. Though... given the still not clearly defined scope of her abilities, that may not be out of the question. "...Unless someone is still down there. Are you armed, detective?" Rei has no weapons of her own-- _no, that's not quite true_ , she has methods, but they are ones that she would prefer Soryu not to witness. Nonetheless, she is prepared to use them, at the risk of Soryu no longer perceiving her as human.

Asuka processes this. Ayanami is...shaking. Despite her impassable expression, she’s shivering like a shaved cat in a snowstorm—

— _sink the tooth into the wood still the horses with a hood_ —

—and Asuka reaches into her pocket and pulls out her gun. Revolver, her  _ Redeemer _ , red handle and a copper finish give it that fiery flare the detective drapes herself in. She holds it to the light so Rei can get a good look at it and it’s only then that the fact that _fuck, I’ve shot at her_ hits. She never hit Ayanami with any, not as far as she knows, but... She shakes her head and resigns to feel like garbage over that later.

“I’ll go in first.” She pops the hatch, grabs onto the convenient ladder, and slinks down into the True Office.


End file.
